The on-going COVID-19 pandemic has strongly impacted the operations of analytical facilities, from widespread closure or severely restricted operations at the outset to ongoing changes in operations months later. It is not yet possible to predict with any certainty when a complete return to normal operations will be possible. Many facilities are indeed reflecting on how to provide the most effective and resilient services in a world where COVID-19 will continue to be present and perhaps return in successive waves. The experiences of the past few months, with increased provision of remote access, drastically reduced travel possibilities for staff and users, and the widespread development of home office, may even lead to permanent changes to operations, and to new standards for operations and access independent from pandemic considerations.

ERF and CERIC conducted a survey in the Spring 2020 of the measures that Research Infrastructures had taken in the wake of the first wave of COVID-19 to try to maintain operations, particularly to support research on COVID-19. Much has been learned since then about the nature of the virus, and how to work while it is present in our communities. As outlined above, our perspectives and mindsets for operations of RIs in post-COVID-19 are evolving. We believe it is timely to carry out a follow-up survey to try to capture, share and benefit from these changing experiences, understandings and plans. To this end, we invite the national and pan-European infrastructures [1] to fill in this questionnaire.

In case of questions, please contact useroffice@ceric-eric.eu.

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Although not a part of this questionnaire, respondents may find useful the questionnaire that Elettra sent to their beamline staff. In case of questions regarding this questionnaire, please contact Lisa.vaccari@elettra.eu or Andrea.locatteli@elettra.eu.

This questionnaire has been set up by ERF and CERIC in the frame of the EC project ACCELERATE, co-funded by the European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (grant agreement 731112), coordinated by CERIC.

[1] Analytical infrastructures that are open to international users and include national infrastructures as well as European networks and consortia of research infrastructures.